ADRIAN — The Madison High School girls basketball team cruised to a 66-37 victory over Allen Park Cabrini in the opening round of the third annual Siena Heights Holiday Tournament on Wednesday.

“We were a bit worried about playing the day after Christmas,” admitted Madison coach Rick McNeil. “We got off to a real nice start though and had a lot of energy from the start.”

Madison (7-0) flew out of the gate, taking a 15-0 lead in the first four minutes of the first quarter. Cabrini couldn’t do a thing to even slow down the Trojans’ offense as they dropped shots from the outside and pounded the ball into the post. Cabrini didn’t score until the final three minutes of the quarter and a late surge made it 18-7 after one.

“We had a lot of energy early on and we built a nice lead because of it,” said McNeil. “We took that 15-0 lead and built on it from there.”

The Trojans refocused between quarters and came out hot again. Madison’s defense shut down Cabrini in every sense of the word, holding the Monarchs to just five points in the second quarter with three coming on a 3-pointer early in the quarter.

“Our defense was a huge factor tonight,” McNeil said. “I’m very happy with how we handled it, especially considering that we didn’t know anything about Cabrini coming into the game. I’d never heard of them before.”

The Trojans’ offense continued to pour it on. Madison began to dump the ball into the posts and Ashley Bussing was able to put in basket after basket. Bussing finished with 11 points in the first half and led the Trojans with 17 points on the night, leading Madison to a 36-12 lead at the half.

Unfortunately for the Trojans, they became too relaxed with their large lead. Cabrini came out hard in the second half and began to put up points on the previously impenetrable Madison defense. Cabrini’s Emily Zgoda proved to be a lot of trouble for the Trojan defense, accounting for nearly half of the Monarchs’ points